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what he knows about farming. The idea has very rarely 

 occurred to the managers of such institutions that it might 

 be possible for a farmer to have anything to say on such 

 occasions which should be either appropriate, interesting, or 

 instructive. When these professional oracles of our pro- 

 fessional managers' selection open their mouths, we are ed- 

 ified with a rehash of such ideas as may be prevalent in 

 the community, served up in a great variety of forms, an.d 

 presented in a great many different and beautiful lights, 

 depending for its coloring upon the business of the orator, 

 as this is the stand-point from which we are viewed, and, 

 of course, this view determines the nature of the, picture. 

 Lawyers and doctors in beautiful colors paint the noble- 

 ness and independence of the farmer's life. They tell us 

 we are the most intelligent, moral, healthy and industrious 

 class in all the land, and all our present is calm and our 

 future happy. Merchants tell us that no business is so 

 sure and free from care as farming, and that in no other 

 calling do so few men end in bankruptcy. Politicians 

 laud in stentorian tones the 'honest yeomanry,' 'the sinews 

 of the land,' the 'bulwarks of our nation's liberties,' 'the 

 coarse blouse of homespun which covers the true and hon- 

 ost heart,' and deluges more of equally fulsome and nause- 

 ating stud'. 



"Soft-handed agricultural editors give long disserta- 

 tions on the necessity of saving all the spare moments 

 and converting them into some useful purpose. They tell 

 us how rainy days may be laboriously used in mending 

 old rake-handles, and winter evenings utilized by pound- 

 ing oak logs into basket stuff, while our wives and daugh- 

 ters can nobly assist in averting bankruptcy by weaving 

 the baskets or ingeniously making one new lamp-wick out 

 of the remains of three old ones. 



"It has never occurred to these very wise instructors 

 that farmers and farmers' families are human beings, with 

 human feelings, human hopes and ambitions, and human 



